Christmas Eve, Chapter Three

Joe, Neetra and Bret were hastily summoned, and the three members of the Next Four regrouped with the three members of The Four Heroes at the gates to Nottingham Castle. Above them stretched the steep hillside, and atop the cliff’s edge, before a sky of deepest blue in which the first stars were coming out, loomed the fluctuating sphere of luminescence now swelled to gigantic size. All of the great mansion-house was lost in within its radiant ever-changing depths, and still it widened with each minute that passed. It was well on the way to becoming the most spectacular set of illuminations in Nottingham that evening, but the sight of it brought our heroes little Christmas cheer.

“We were lucky to escape with our lives,” reported The Chancellor, an electronic scanning tool in either hand. “It would appear from these readings that the considerable chronal energies I was attempting to infuse into the Time-Shifter, wantonly broken loose by Steam, have somehow merged with his psychic presence. He has created not a temporal disturbance, nor a telepathic one, but a never-before-witnessed amalgamation of the two. All that it touches it will consume, and its advance shows no sign of abating.”

“What could have made Steam do this?” Neetra wondered softly.

“On the plague-ships of the first Dark Advent, when the man at the tiller became too ill or too hungry to be sure he’d be able to steer straight, he used to press the tip of a dagger into his arm,” Gala said. This seemed to be intended as some sort of answer to Neetra’s question, though she spoke in the contemplative tone of one talking to herself. “With it there, piercing his flesh, he could hold off the worst of the delirium long enough to make sure everyone on board stayed safe.”

“If there’s a point to this little autobiography, Gala…” Bret began, not taking his eyes from the cliff-top.

Gala whipped round to face him, her teeth bared. “Yes, Stevens, there is,” she hissed. “Pain gives us focus. It prevents distraction when there’s crucial work to be done. None of you Four Heroes knew Steam is capable of acts like this if left to do as he pleases. No, but in your blinkered altruism you compelled me to stop administering the only corrective measures that keep his behaviour under control, as per usual without a thought for the consequences of interfering in what you don’t understand! Well, reap what you’ve sown, Four Heroes!” She threw out her hand at the broadening sphere of light. “How many of the innocent lives you think you’re still here to protect are going to pay when that thing hits populated areas, and all because of your refusal to turn your duties over to us when you were supposed to!”

“Corrective measures? Is that your new name for the things you did to him?” Neetra flung back, incensed. “And seriously, Gala, knock it off with the stuff about the Next Four replacing us, because we’ve already – ”

Joe put his hand on her shoulder. “Accusations will have to wait, ladies,” said he, pointing ahead. “Behold!”

From within the whirling epicentre of the disturbance, new shapes were beginning to emerge. These took on form and etched themselves across the night sky in great spectral images of garish colour, a kind of cosmic fusion of a cinema screen and the Northern Lights. Among the far-greater-than-lifesize figures were recognisable representations of Steam, Gala and The Chancellor, along with recurring flashes of a snow-covered landscape, a blizzard in its bitterest throes, and other more shadowy shapes that were harder for our heroes to make out. One of them, extremely indistinct and only occasionally glimpsed, seemed to be that of a pretty girl with fair hair, greenish-blue eyes topped by dark brows, and white feathery wings on her back.

“Psychic projections,” The Chancellor announced, quickly checking his twin monitors. “Then there may be hope of resolving this. Clearly Steam’s mind remains at work in the centre of the anomaly, if he is able to cast these visual manifestations of what he is thinking or remembering. That means that if he can be brought out of what he has set in motion and restored to a rational state, the destructive side-effects will be quelled.”

Neetra was gazing into the aurora of hallucinatory imagery as the girl with wings flickered by again. “That’s Carrie!” she exclaimed. “Why is Steam thinking about Carrie? In fact, what’s she even got to do him? I’ve seen them in the same room together just once, back in our briefing about saving the refugees from the Ring of Fire, and they sure acted like they’d never met! If they knew each other, wouldn’t they at least have said hello?”

“It’s pretty weird alright, but that does looks like Carrie up there,” Bret agreed. “Should we go and fetch the real one, Neet?”

Neetra thought for a moment. “No,” she decided. “Carrie would have told me if there was anything she knew about that connected her and Steam. These pictures of her we’re seeing are all in his mind. Right now Carrie’s off skating with Lisa, Guy and Jeffrey in the City Centre, so we might as well let her get on with it. We don’t need more lives in danger with us here while we’re setting this to rights.”

“And any thoughts on how we might go about achieving that, pretty one?” D’Carthage asked with mild anxiety.

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s the Grand High Flagship of the Martian Royal Family all over again,” Neetra replied. “This is where I send my psychic self into that thing and drag Steam back out of his little winter wonderland, before Christmas is cancelled for all of us!”

“Young lady, think this through,” The Chancellor put in sternly. “You have no idea what you are proposing. That is an illusory other-realm composed of Steam’s demented recollections and the very forces of linear time gone awry. Nothing is known about what you will face, and there are no assurances you will return alive. Is there one of you in The Four Heroes who has any conception of planning ahead?”

“Not me,” said Neetra. “Look, guys, we all know I’m the only girl for the job. I’m the strongest telepath, and I’ve shared a psychic link with Steam in the past. If anyone here’s in with a chance of getting through to the heart of that mess and reaching him, it’s me.”

“All that you say is true, Neetra,” Joe admitted with a sigh, “though it makes this no easier. You must promise me then you will be careful in there.”

“I will,” Neetra told him gently. Pointing out she was a big girl now would only have brought up one of their other troubles. “Just give me a sec to get myself together, and it’ll be ‘let’s do it’ time!”

After five minutes by herself in the castle gatehouse plucking up her psychic abilities, Neetra felt as ready as she’d ever be. The truth however was that she agreed with The Chancellor far more than she’d let on, and suspected that as she would be venturing into who knew what, nothing could truly prepare her for it. Standing up to leave, she made for the door but found Gala waiting there.

“I need him returned, physically and psychologically intact,” said she. “Can you guarantee that?”

“No,” Neetra replied. “Want to torture me a bit?”

“Don’t make light of this, girl,” Gala warned her in a low voice. “Or at any rate, save the customary Four Heroes humour for a crisis you didn’t cause.”

Neetra took a deep steadying breath. She knew that in her temper earlier on she had nearly given away vital information she and her team were striving to keep secret from Gala, and this made her aware how important it was to stay calm now.

“You’ve made your point,” Neetra began. “Once would have done, in fact. Everybody knows you’ve decided we’re responsible for what’s happened – ”

“I wasn’t talking about the four of you this time. I was talking about you,” Gala interrupted. “Steam was already unstable, erratic, in constant need of discipline, but who did more to tip his delicate balance than you? You, and the endless meddling with those childlike affections you so delight in.”

“You’ve no right to say that to me,” Neetra retorted coldly. “I’m not that kind of girl. Everything I felt for Steam, or thought I felt, was real. And my feelings aren’t something I have to explain or justify to you.”

“I believe we’ve just been looking at the end result of that little adolescent exploration of your feelings,” Gala remarked.

“You’re making it sound like I wasn’t hurt by what happened with Steam, Gala, but if you think that’s the way it was, then…then you don’t have any idea how this works,” said Neetra. She spread her hands, trying to be reasonable but unsure where to start. “You talk as if you know everything about pain, but with you it’s always the battles, the struggle, fighting for your cause. I wish you could open your mind to the other sorts of pain that are out there. Then you’d be able to understand that the last thing I ever wanted to do was to hurt Steam, and that it was painful for me too – ”

No sooner were the words out than Neetra saw they were a mistake. She had been so mindful of not flaring up herself, that she had forgotten Gala might yet readily do so.

“Are you trying to convince me you know what it is to suffer?” she erupted at Neetra, her dark eyes incandescent. “Small wonder The Four Heroes’ career as protectors of this city was such an unmitigated farce, with a maudlin empty-headed girl on their side mistaking her flutter-hearted fancies for wisdom and experience! What is there anywhere in your life that can be called pain? A childhood of midnight feasts and giggling contests with your little orphanage friends, followed by a warm bedroom in your boyfriend’s palatial home! Somehow you managed to act like the daughter of Clan Royalty even before you knew that was what you were. I grew up in the first Dark Advent. I watched my family and loved ones die. Don’t presume to tell me you’ve lived through anything to compare.”

A silence fell. The only sound came from the pair of them breathing.

“I still have a team-member who needs to be rescued,” Gala eventually said, her tone slightly more collected. “Was there anything else?”

“No,” Neetra replied in a quiet voice. She crossed over to the doorway. Then she turned back around.

“Yes,” she corrected herself. “Stop having dinner with my boyfriend!”

And with that, Neetra was gone.

NEXT: 'TEARS, SUCH AS ANGELS WEEP'